


meeting you in the dark

by camerasparring



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Affairs, Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Closeted Character, Derry Fog, Infidelity, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Psychological Horror, Semi-Public Sex, Smut, Unhappy Ending, Unhealthy Relationships, just a bit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:00:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28134342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/camerasparring/pseuds/camerasparring
Summary: There’s a man now sitting, a wide smile on his face. His features are heavily shadowed but handsome, dark hair peppered with white at the temples, a large forehead, thin lips, crooked teeth. His hands are spread long and bony over his thighs where they’re pried wide apart on the chair, fingers dancing as he stares at Frank hesitantly. His arms are long. His legs arelong.Frank inhales heavily through his nose.“This seat taken?” the man whispers, and Frank’s first instinct is to shush him. Or zip up his pants. No one has…No one has ever.
Relationships: Frank Kaspbrak/Wentworth Tozier
Comments: 19
Kudos: 33
Collections: It Rare Pair Secret Santa 2020





	meeting you in the dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [trashing-the-trashmouth (summerforbran)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerforbran/gifts).



> Happy to be the first Went/Frank fic! :) 
> 
> Heed the tags. I hope you enjoy, dear requester! Thank you to my lovely beta. You know who you are ;)

Frank parks between an old station wagon and a small delivery truck on the south side of 91st Street. He tucks his keys into the pocket of his slacks and waits until the traffic passes to open his door and jog across the road. He takes the two-block walk in measured strides, familiar in his Thursday process:

Leave the office at seven. Change out of his starched shirt and tie. Drive twenty minutes south until he sees the lights of the Ambient in his periphery. Keep driving until he finds a place to park: at least past 90th, but never as far as 95th. He would loathe a repeat of a few months ago, when that woman with a crooked bird’s nest on her head and slime on her teeth slipped her hand in his jacket pocket and almost got off with his wallet. Now his walk is shorter. More manageable. 

His armpits still prickle with sweat as he approaches the theater. The heat is sweltering, even with the sun setting. They’ll have to set up the little paddling pool for Eddie in the backyard.

 _No_ , he scolds himself. _We don’t think about them_. _Not now_. 

It’s perhaps the most important part of his Thursday process. 

He shakes it off with drops of moisture beading at his temple and takes the last few steps to the newspaper-plastered double doors. A cool burst of air hits him smack in the face. He lets it seep into his bones, but the contentment doesn’t last long before it’s replaced by the creeping, sinking, _thrilling_ feeling of fear. 

Or whatever the hell this other type of chill vibrating over his bones is. This unsettling grind of his teeth when he’s shivering, that crunch of something that should _not_ be crunched, but all over his body. Down the crooks of his spine and into the soles of his feet. He moves through it, as he keeps doing, as he’s done. As he couldn’t do when he was younger. But settling into the reality of his job and his marriage and his child made him brave in a way he never was before. Brave enough to push, but not enough to let anything keep. 

_Not now_ , he thinks. _Don’t let that in now_. 

Frank hates how easily he can hear himself think. 

The distinct lack of chatter would be eerie in any other setting, but the men who loiter around here hardly notice. Talking is a no-no—something Frank learned the terrifying way, when he mumbled “excuse me” after colliding with someone coming out of the men’s room, he got a red-faced glare and scowl in return. Later, someone met him on his walk, dark and foreboding in a long coat hiked up above their ears, and followed close along on his heels the whole time. 

His heart had hammered the whole way home, and then some. He had skipped the next two Thursdays until he regained a sense of calm. Until he convinced himself no one was after him. The “excuse me” was the only thing he could tie it to, other than his general presence in a place like this. Maybe this was just something that happened to men like him.

Frank buys a ticket and takes deep breaths too quiet for the man behind the counter to hear. 

The ticket-taker hands him a small piece of paper and points to the right. Frank nods his understanding.

The men who frequent the Ambient Theater aren’t looking for small talk, or politeness, or any leading eye contact that doesn’t end in a joint trip to the bathroom, or ducking into one of the three theaters to ignore whatever film is screening. They’re just… _looking_. Their shoulders leaned against the wall. A cigarette dangling from their lips. A hand in their pocket. A deep sense of dread in their stomach. 

Or maybe that’s just him. But in Frank’s experience, men lacking in shame don’t often avoid looking at you unless they want to wrap a hand around your cock. 

Frank sees one of the usual men—dark eyes, dark hair, short and a little sweaty in a blue tank top, his arms on full display. Walking past him without noticing is an exercise in futility. Favorites are a given here, and Frank has had a couple, but has never acted on it. Frank has never acted on anything outside the extreme discomfort of his home and his marriage. 

_Not_...

But he likes to watch. 

He’s been coming for almost three years now; long enough that some of the employees—the ones who have stuck it out through some raids and some threats of closure—know him. They smile coyly when he walks in, but no one asks his name. No one talks here. They just look. 

Frank likes to look. But he lets them look, too.

He walks up to the doors of his theater, eyes cast down, the gaze of the other men burning red heat onto his cheeks. He walks on through and takes a seat and thinks about them, about their hungry eyes and their red shiny lips and their long, hairy arms and their tight shirts. He thinks about them as he strokes one firm hand over his crotch, the stirring already starting as he sinks into the uncomfortable, creaky chair and spreads his legs. 

The screen lights up a few minutes later. 

Frank’s eyes adjust to the light as he looks around. The few men who populate the theater are spaced equally apart. A few in the back, a few in the front, a few to the right, a few to the left. Frank’s placed himself toward the back right corner so he can survey the whole room. 

Frank likes to watch. 

As the movie plays on—two men undressing each other slowly, with some dialogue he can barely hear over the blaring, thumping music in the background—some of the men start to shuffle around the theater. Catching each other’s eyes, or maybe just following up on the leading stares they saw on their way in. They always scatter slowly. Crawl to a new seat. Make whispered conversation. Suck spots onto necks. Bob their heads in laps. Slip hands through zippers and buttons and pull and push until they elicit moans. Most of it he can’t see, but Frank likes to imagine. 

Frank likes to picture their long, thick cocks; the veiny shafts and the spongy heads; the precome leaking and the tongues that clear it off; the fists holding tight and jerking back and forth; the spit hocked, dripping onto balls, the hair, the smell, the feel, the taste of sweat and _man_ and _sex_ and everything he’s barely experienced but strikes so familiar in his fantasies.

A place like this makes him feel like he could do it. Like he could finally… touch someone. How he’s always wanted.

He presses his hips up, searching for friction against the palm of his hand. He can feel himself leaking in his underwear and winces. He finally unzips and digs a hand inside to feel himself. He imagines it’s another hand in the dark, reaching over, feeling him for the first time. He would never let it happen, but— 

A blur of movement in Frank’s periphery. His blood runs cold when he hears the squeak of the chair next to him, suddenly occupied.

There’s a man sitting there now, a wide smile on his face. His features are heavily shadowed but handsome, dark hair peppered with white at the temples, a large forehead, thin lips, crooked teeth. His hands are spread long and bony over his thighs where they’re pried wide apart on the chair, fingers dancing as he stares at Frank hesitantly. His arms are long. His _legs_ are long.

Frank inhales heavily through his nose.

“This seat taken?” the man whispers, and Frank’s first instinct is to shush him. Or zip up his pants. No one has… 

_No one has ever_.

He shivers again, cock jerking in his hand. 

“No,” he says quietly. 

The man nods, staring back at the screen. Then he just… sits. 

Frank has had men sit by him. Men try to touch him; hell, that’s why a lot of them come here. But not Frank. Frank has a wife. Frank has a child.

 _Don’t_ — 

_Don’t think_ , he thinks. He thinks. He always fucking _thinks_. 

He _looks_.

But no one… no one _talks_ to him. 

Frank wants to zip up his pants. Move seats. Maybe even leave. Walk out the door with a half-chub tucked into his waistband and drive all the way home without another thought. But the man is just… sitting. Just watching. 

His hands on his thighs. His long fingers tapping up and down. 

They sit like that until Frank starts to get uncomfortable. His legs bounce anxiously, his hand still cupped over his— Well. He’s certainly hard again. It’s just that this guy is—

Frank wants to look. His eyes, his hands, his whole _soul_ itches to look over, to see what this man is doing. To look a little longer at his face. To trace his features with his memory. To watch him lick his lips or bite at his cheek or close his eyes as he touches himself. Frank heaves a breath deep in his chest and stares at the screen. 

He can’t look. 

But then the man turns.

Frank almost gasps, frozen in the light of his gaze, still in his periphery. He wonders if he should turn, if he should _look_ , but his gut makes the decision for him. He turns. And the man… he’s _staring_. Really staring. The way Frank sees men staring in here. 

Here is different than the lobby. Different than bumping into each other outside the bathroom, outside the theater, outside in the real world. Staring here means—

Frank knows what it means. He moves his hand gently, rolling his fingers in his underwear so he knows the man can see.

The man traces the movement with his eyes. Frank’s vision goes fuzzy, dark and staticky, flitting in and out as the man follows suit; he watches as the man undoes his own pants and parrots him, his long fingers sinking in through the slit of fabric and spreading out, thrusting, rolling and pushing and stroking just like Frank. Frank presses back into his chair and tries to _remember_ this.

The man smiles. Frank squeezes his eyes shut and— 

He’s not going to last. His whole body thrums, he wants to lean over and rub his temple against the man’s shoulder; he wants to feel something against him, someone’s touch; this _man’s_ touch. He wants long fingers wrapped around him and thin lips sucking at him and dark, indiscernible eyes watching him but _just_ for him, just for him and no one else. He wants those eyes to know him. 

Jesus, he just wants _someone_ on this Earth to know him. 

His strokes get fast and messy. His other hand snakes down to cup hard at his balls, and he goes off in his pants, in the palm of his hand, his whole body shaking with it, pulsing and drawing blood from his lip as he chomps down to keep the sound in. It’s the most he’s ever had, the _strongest_ he thinks he’s ever felt in his entire life. 

Frank blinks twice.

Zips up his pants.

Jolts out of his chair and into the lobby. 

The ticket-taker’s eyes meet his as he pushes the door open. He smiles at Frank, but Frank’s eyes dart away, struck cold and numb. He jogs out of the theater, down the two blocks with shaking spunk-covered hands before unlocking his car and driving home.

It happens two more times. 

The second time, Frank recognizes him as soon as he sits down. 

The man is almost hovering to his right, like he hasn’t chosen a seat yet. Frank isn’t quite sure how he snuck up on him so well last time, but maybe he expected Frank to mix it up a little. Unfortunately—fortunately??—“mixing it up” isn’t really Frank’s style. Frank forces down a smile when the man immediately walks over and plops down in the space next to him again. 

“Definitely taken now,” he says out of the side of his mouth. Frank sees the glimpses of crow’s feet starting against the edges of his eyes and he wants to tongue the creases of them. 

They don’t speak any more than that. 

But the man moans when Frank pulls his cock out. 

The man doesn’t seem slighted—no bitter sense of rejection from their previous, aborted encounter—and Frank is glad. After all, that’s how things _are_ here. No one expects a commitment because they looked at you. Because they engaged with you somehow. Because they made you feel the best you’ve ever felt in your life. At least that’s what Frank told himself. 

They jerk off steadily and slowly through most of the film. Frank thinks he might die from dehydration before the thing is over, but then the man reaches over carefully, dragging a blunt nail over where Frank’s fingers are clenched tight around himself, and Frank comes so hard he almost screams. 

The third time, Frank is hard before he even walks into the theater.

Worrying it will be visible to the ticket-taker, he curls his body inward as he’s handing over the bills. The man pays no mind, smiling wide, his teeth pressed tight together in a crooked line. 

“To the right,” he says holding out his customary slip of paper. Frank’s heart inexplicably jumps at the sound. “Enjoy.” 

Frank pauses, then reaches for the ticket as usual. 

He swallows, and moves to walk past the desk. To his theater. 

After all, he’s been waiting for this. Thinking about it at home, which he swore he would never do. Not around Sonia. Not if he could help it. He’s managed to keep this thing at bay for many years. Through his adolescence, when living in a home of boys felt like a personal affront to his self-discipline. Through his years in the army, when the promise of a warm body and a soft, pliant mouth would have meant the world. And all through his relationship with Sonia—his _marriage_ —despite his general apathy for her face and her body and her personality and the way she presents herself to the world. 

It’s been a lot of years. 

But _no_. He doesn’t give in. He _hasn’t_ given in. Not until the Ambient. And this he can _control_. So he let himself think. Because he can control it. This is contained to the theater, and that is it. That’s all it’s ever going to be.

The man is already sitting in the seat next to Frank’s usual. 

Frank’s heart pulls dangerously, a stretched rubber band extended through his torso. He rubs over his collarbone and almost turns to leave. 

_You want this_? The voice asks. _You really want this_. 

He takes his seat. The man smiles at him again. 

“Fancy seeing you here,” he says this time. 

“You too,” Frank replies, though as soon as it’s out of his mouth he realizes it makes little sense. His head thunks back against the seat. 

“Third time’s the charm.” The man’s voice is raspy, his tone silly and light. It’s so out of place, in the dark, amongst the burgeoning moaning and slapping onscreen. It flickers interest inside of Frank. He wonders if this is why this man has stuck in his head. 

Frank watches him a little more closely this time. The way he shifts in his seat, his face stretching into an embarrassed grin when his chair squeaks a little too loudly; the way he pulls a piece of gum out of his pocket to pop into his mouth, then lodges it in the back, against this molars when he starts to undo his pants; the way he grunts _just_ a little louder when the men onscreen start to kiss passionately. Frank grows harder whenever the man makes a noise, and he tries not to catalogue them away. 

This is what it is. But the man has been here every Thursday, at the same time, three weeks in a row. 

_He wants this_ , Frank thinks. _Why else would he have been sitting here?_

They fall into the same rhythm they have each time, and by the time the film is halfway over, Frank can feel his orgasm cresting. He can’t possibly hold out like he did last week: not with the way the man keeps licking at his palm, flicking his wrist, throwing his head back in pleasure. It’s like he’s committed to driving Frank crazy tonight. Putting on a performance to get him to snap. 

The solid pressure on Frank’s chest is fit to burst right alongside his cock. 

When the man comes—first, he’s never come _first_ , and Frank delights in this development—he does it just as quietly as always, but there’s something different, too. He turns his head slightly to the side, catching Frank’s eye. And he _leers_. His smile crooks up in the corners and goes all wobbly, and Frank wonders if he’s ever seen someone smile just as they’re going off like that. Frank focuses on his smile, then drifts his eyes down to the rest of him, barely visible in the bad lighting. His arms are slightly wiry, but Frank likes that, a light dusting of hair over his skin, his eyes rolling back, the tendons stretching, his fingers tightening. It’s become familiar. 

_You could know him_ , the voice says. 

Frank shoots into his own hand, trying to keep his eyes open as long as they will allow. 

He gives the man a look—he means to convey some sort of apology, or maybe even a goodbye, but he has no idea if his face even moves with how quickly he attempts it—and lifts out of his seat to clean up. Last time, his briefs were so soiled that he had to do his own load of laundry as soon as he got back home. Sonia almost sniffed him out; luckily he has spilled soup on himself at work enough times to make the same excuse believable. 

This time, he heads to the bathroom to avoid it altogether. 

He does as little scrubbing on the front of his slacks as possible, simple warm water with a dab of hand soap from the dispenser. Just enough to avoid suspicion, just enough to dry without a stain. He straightens his shirt on his frame, rights his hair in the back so it doesn’t stick up, stares into his own bloodshot eyes and tries to will away that creeping, shaking sense of fear and shame. 

_You should get home_ , he thinks. He hears. _You don’t_ — 

“Hey.” 

Frank turns around to see the man standing in the doorway, that same hesitant smile on his face. But this time Frank can make it out clearly. He can see _all_ of the man clearly. 

His lightly tanned skin. His ratty blue t-shirt. His severe, broad shoulders. His stubbly jaw and his sharp bones and his olive eyes and his grey and brown hair that curls down at the ends, a little too long. He’s tall and broad and skinny and staring right at Frank and Frank is staring right back at him in the synthetic light of the bathroom. 

Frank clenches fingers around the used paper towel in his hand and walks right past him, out the door. Their shoulders brush, mismatched where the man has an inch—maybe two—on him. 

Frank doesn’t say anything. 

He drives home and barely sleeps that night. 

Frank doesn’t return the next Thursday.

Or the one after that. 

Instead, he tries his hand at mixing things up.

He tries to drive a new route to his office: his boss is unsettled at first but seems genuinely pleased when he shows up a whole three minutes early three days in a row. He tries to cook: he finds his own ingredients at the grocery store and throws it all into a pot until it boils together to form some sort of chili that he and Eddie scarf down while Sonia knits, displeased at the dinner table. He spends two Thursday nights at home, expertly dodging Sonia’s questions about his fake bowling league and how they’ve taken a generous pause since losing the annual tournament last month. 

Even in the falsehoods, Frank finds himself leaning toward disappointment. 

But Frank sticks to it best he can, even vows, late at night as he’s trying to sleep, that he could _be_ this man. Forever. If he really tried. He could live on his experience for the rest of his life and settle into this life as a husband. As a father. 

In reality, it’s all a distraction. 

The man’s eyes sit at the forefront of his mind the entire two weeks. They stick in the way Frank has never let thoughts stick before; they sit in his memory, waiting for him to be stagnant before showing their daunting, all-consuming face again. 

He hears that voice, in the back of his head. 

_He could have wanted you_. 

Something about seeing the man in the light has changed things. Something about seeing his eyes: polite, soft, asking. Something about knowing they were looking at him. He had no place to hide. The worst of it was he didn’t really want to. 

One day, he gets home from work and sees a flyer stuck to the fridge. It feels like yet another welcome distraction from the fact that it’s Thursday, and he’s been feeling particularly anxious this week, so he removes the magnet and takes it into the bedroom to find Sonia rearranging the closet yet again. 

She likes to “purge” her own wardrobe at least once a year, but as time has gone on—as their relationship has deteriorated into “raising a child” and “occasionally pecking each other on the lips as they are readying themselves for bed” and “did we ever really like each other or did this sort of just… fall into place”—she’s been doing it once a season, instead. It takes her days of pulling articles off hangers, washing them, drying them, ironing them, fussing over them when they look marginally better, sticking half of them back onto hangers in the same closet and making Frank take the other half in black trash bags to the Salvation Army. 

Frank hates the ritual. But he respects that it calms her. The only thing that has ever calmed Frank has been visiting the Ambient. 

He sits on the bed and stares at the flyer. 

“They’re giving the option of full days,” Frank says, holding up the piece of paper from Eddie’s school for Sonia to see. She doesn’t acknowledge him, just fits another heap of clothing in her arms. 

“Kindergarten is already stressful enough for him,” Sonia says, matter-of-factly. “Spending half days away from home? As if he’s not already in tears every day when I pick him up.” 

Frank frowns, his gut stirring with guilt. He’s never noticed Eddie upset because of school, but Sonia is the one who spends most afternoons with him, and he’s only a month in. He swallows around the discomfort. He doesn’t particularly want to hear about Eddie’s issues in school; the only other option would be keeping him home, and Frank’s not sure inflicting Sonia on him full-time is a wise decision. She barely leaves the house as it is. 

“Maybe we should try it. Just a day a week,” he suggests. “He’s going to have to get used to it next year, anyway.” 

Sonia pops out of the closet, her brown curls mashed down on one side where they’ve been pressed into the barrage of clothing. She straightens her glasses and wipes a bead of sweat from her forehead, her cheeks puffing like she’s about to let him have it, so he beats her to it. 

“There’s an informational meeting this evening,” he says, then adds, “You put the flyer on the fridge,” because using her own behavior against her is a surefire way to get her to accept something as fact. 

Sonia scoffs. “I’m not leaving the house _now_.” 

“Then I will,” Frank says, standing up. He reaches behind her to grab a blazer and avoids her eyes. 

“You??” The brown irises of her eyes almost disappear behind the darkening whites. 

“Yes. I’m his father.” Frank sets his jaw, and her mouth closes. She doesn’t argue with that one, either. 

The meeting is standard. As soon as the teacher is done explaining—which takes all of five minutes—Frank is ready to leave, but it drones on for another forty-five minutes. Lots of parents asking dead-end or uptight questions about the particulars of their children’s kindergarten education. As if five-year-olds are doing things much more complicated than potentially counting to ten on differently colored blocks. Eddie has always been slightly edging above those in his age group: Sonia made sure he was able to read by the time he turned five. Frank was surprised, considering he thought without reading comprehension Sonia would be able to keep him more complacent. But she believes in a “good education,” she told Frank. This was years after Eddie was already born, of course. 

They never discussed anything useful before their long trek into actually having a child. Eddie was the furthest thing from a surprise once he finally arrived, but they had no idea what they were doing nevertheless. Frank certainly didn’t know what he was doing. Apparently Sonia had opinions. Opinions and thoughts and expectations and plans. And those plans did not include full-day kindergarten.

As Frank learned from the helpful part of the meeting, there are options for staggered full-days to ease the kids into it. There’s even a sign-up sheet at the front of the room, but Frank doesn’t take his chances signing Eddie up quite yet. Sonia will be pestered enough when he gets home. Frank’s not going to throw his ability to make decisions for his son out with the bathwater of this whole argument… so to speak. Best to take gradual steps.

The small classroom empties out as the teacher bids goodbye, fewer than two dozen mothers and some fathers all gathering in the doorway. Frank slowly makes his way there too, when he feels a tap on his shoulder. 

He turns to see the man from theater behind him. The man whose eyes have haunted him. 

Frank’s whole body goes numb. For a moment he wonders if he somehow fell asleep during the meeting to find himself dreaming about the Ambient, but when he blinks, _hard_ , he’s still under the fluorescent lights of the classroom. And the man is still standing there, staring at him. 

Today, he’s wearing glasses, thin-rimmed and slipping gradually down his nose. He’s wearing a nice blue suit, fitted to his broad shoulders and his slim hips, one hand pushing back his jacket so he can hold around his own waist. He looks… 

_Looks like you want him_ , Frank hears. 

Frank _thinks_. 

The man clears his throat. “We have to stop meeting like this,” he says, low and quiet, but Frank still whips around to make sure no one heard. The rest of the parents are meandering, trying to make their way home to their spouses or their children or their pets or their dinners. Frank is stuck motionless in his five-year-old’s classroom with the man he’s watched jerk off three times in a dirty movie theater. 

Way back in the logical part of his brain, Frank knows that no one else in this room would be suspicious of two grown men having a conversation. But that part of his brain is currently eclipsed by sheer panic, so he takes a step back, lest they be too close together.

“You got a kid here?” the man asks, and Frank has to stop and think. 

A kid. Yes. Eddie. He has a kid here.

“Yeah, uh. Yeah.” He blinks. Licks his lips. The man grins, pushing up his glasses, just like Sonia always does. Frank never finds himself watching the points of Sonia’s knuckles flex as she does it. “You?” 

“Little Richie, yeah.” He shrugs, pointing to the wall of curled up Polaroid pictures of the students. Richie Tozier has a brown mop of hair, glasses too large for his face, and giant buck teeth. Eddie’s picture is up two rows to the left. Kaspbrak. Tozier. 

“Tozier,” Frank repeats aloud.

“Kaspbrak,” _Tozier_ says back. 

Then he extends his hand. 

“Wentworth.” He shrugs again, his lip curling over his teeth. He’s flinchy with nerves, Frank can tell. “Went, for short. Most people call me… well. My wife calls me sugar lips, but—”

“I’m Frank,” Frank says. He points back at the board, forcing down the blush. “Eddie’s my son.” 

“Alrighty,” Went says, licking at his lips. A pointed tip tracing the thin lines. He stares at Frank. 

_He knows you_. 

Frank shakes it off and notices the crowd of parents at the exit has whittled down to a slow stream. Frank takes a step forward to wait his turn. 

He wants to leave. He wants to run. His skin is crawling. 

_He wants to know you._

Went takes a step behind him. Frank feels a hand rest on his hip, the barest of touches, just for a moment, until it pulls away again. He turns to see Went’s eyes shining, light green mixed with a faded grey, a strand of hair falling over his forehead where he’s watching Frank. Frank feels the heat between him, wants to reach out and touch back as much as he wants to run. As much as he wants to forget this all happened. 

Went nudges his chin forward. “The door.”

When Frank turns back around, the coast is clear of waiting parents. He takes one step, then another, until he’s out in the hall. 

When he turns again, Went is close on his heels. There’s a door close to where they’re huddled together, and Frank pauses. Went stops with him. He’s staring again. Staring deep, hands raised like they’re about to touch Frank again. Like they touched his hips, or traced his cock, or landed on his thigh as he came— 

Frank loses it. 

He opens the door, grabs Went by the arm, and pulls until they’re crowded into the room together.

It’s a closet. Full of cleaning supplies, a bucket and a mop shoved into the corner, a lightbulb dangling precariously above them. 

Went huffs a laugh. “Always in the dark.” 

Frank exhales heavily, trying not to smile. Went is close. Closer than he’s ever been, and face to face. Frank’s head is buzzing with anticipation and excitement and _thrill_ and _wrong_ and _fear_ and his dick twitches hard, filling fast until he can feel it straining at his zipper. He trails a hand down to adjust himself and sees Went’s eyes flick down to watch. 

Turns out he doesn’t have to visit the Ambient to feel this way when the man— when _Went_ is here with him. So he presses forward to kiss him. 

He hears a small, whiny noise of protest before Went’s hand comes up to cup around his neck, and then their mouths are opening against each other. Frank moves in closer until their chests are flush, until he can tell Went is growing just as hard in his pants. Their lips stretch as they turn and connect, dry and rough and scratchy getting wetter and wetter. 

Frank has never felt this good in his life. 

It’s not just the making out, though that’s something he’s missed since he and Sonia shacked up, hasty in the aftermath of his return to Derry. He’s loved kissing since Daisy Harold pulled him by the front of his shirt in his junior year and laid one on him. The closeness, the intimacy, the smell and feel of someone wanting to get even closer, and the possibility for immediate rejection; that the same body so close and so tender could move away in an instant and leave him with the ghost of his own desire. 

But this is… this is _more_. There’s a frightening edge to doing this with a man. A strong, tall man with rough hands and a deep voice and eyes he’s been dreaming of and lips he’s been imagining pulling between his own and nibbling with his teeth, so he pushes down the panic and does it. 

Because he has this under _control_. 

“I didn’t think I’d see you again,” Went says when they gasp apart. Frank cants forward when Went’s hands find his belt. 

“I thought you followed me,” Frank says, huffing into the darkness between them, because it feels like they’re spitting secrets. 

“Nope,” Went laughs, pulling Frank’s pants down until they catch on his thighs. “Just lucky, I guess.” 

Frank’s heart pulls. It aches in his chest, right in the center, and it feels so real and sudden it startles him. He looks up to Went staring at him, the thin sliver of light from under the door reflected in his eyes. They’re more recognizable to Frank this way: dark and indiscernible. But something still rocks deep into his brain, shatters the resolve that Went has always managed to break. 

They kiss again, their erections grinding together through their underwear where each of their pants are gaping. Frank opens his mouth wide for Went to lick inside, and he does the same back in spades once he gets the hang of it. They touch greedily, hands skating up and down each other’s chests, trying to burrow through each other’s clothes. Frank knows they would be pushing their luck to get naked: surely someone is bound to find them here. He’s not sure he would want to shed all of his clothes, even if they did have the time. It’s too much. Frank feels ravenous; he feels like he has never known desire or want or attraction before this moment. Stuck in a closet together. Pressed together head to toe, sweating together. Until Went drops to his knees. 

Frank wants to pull him back up as soon as it happens. But then Went is slinking down Frank’s underwear to tuck under his balls, and _then_ the head of Frank’s cock is wet and slick in Went’s mouth, and Frank thunks his head back against the wall of the closet and just lets it happen. 

_He wants you, doesn’t he?_

He tries to think about anything but the gentle sucking of Went’s mouth, or the roaming hands reaching down to prod at his balls through fabric, or the fact that he somehow found the man he’s been dreaming about for _weeks_ after an honest attempt at being more involved in his son’s education, but focus is hard to come by. All he can do is grip hands around Went’s shoulders and try not to fall apart. 

“Pump your—” Went pops off to say, his mouth a dark “o” in Frank’s spotty vision, but Frank’s hips thrust forward involuntarily, and Went moans, “Fuck, yeah, just like that,” and sucks him back down. 

Frank keeps up the thrusting as Went’s mouth grows more eager. The suction crawls and crawls with the stretching tight pressure in Frank’s belly. Went pulls off to mouth at Frank’s balls, and Frank gasps. He shoves a fist in his mouth to keep the volume down, but Went’s hand scratches up through the hair around his cock, up and up and up until it’s pulling just below his bellybutton, and the combination of sensations is mind-blowing. Went keeps circling there, his fingers drawing tight shapes as he fits the head of Frank’s leaking cock back in his mouth. Wet lips suck and release, suck and release, while his fingers scratch and pull, scratch and pull, and _fuck_ —

“M’gonna,” Frank breathes, assuming that gets the point across. Went hums around his mouthful, keeping still with his lips tucked right under the head, and it feels like he’s pouting, pressure pushing back and forth in its intensity, and Frank feels crazy in his pleasure. His whole body shivers with panic and adrenaline and when he realizes Went’s going to swallow around him, he comes with an aborted shout into the crook of his sweaty elbow. 

Went stands up like a shot as soon as Frank is done, a hand still wrapped affectionately around his twitching cock, and then Frank feels the pressure of his own aching dick right up against it. Went squeezes them together. Frank’s whole chest fills with want. Went’s eyes find him, dark and pleased, and Frank’s mouth drops open.

“Gonna use this, if that’s alright with you,” Went says, then lets his tongue fall gracelessly from his mouth. A glob of Frank’s come droops down between them, half-landing on Went’s hard cock. The other half lands on where Frank’s pants are pressed down, but the image of it is so achingly sexy, and Frank’s brain is so fried, that he wracks out a sob. 

Went starts jacking himself harder, bringing Frank along for the ride, until Frank has to grip thumbs into Went’s hips to make it through the searing pleasure and pain. When Frank hisses, overwhelmed, Went cups fast over the head of his dick, jerking and shaking in Frank’s grip, moaning and whining until he drapes his whole body against the wall, over Frank’s chest. 

By the next Thursday, Frank’s on his way to a new routine. 

He and Went had exchanged numbers outside the closet, rushed and smiling, flushed faces and stained pants, which felt familiar in its absurdity. Frank gave Went his office number, because Sonia is far too controlling about the homestead to even attempt a system for Went calling the house. 

“I have Thursdays open,” Frank told him, and Went had winked. 

On Wednesday, Went calls Frank’s office. 

“There’s a...” Went drops his voice low on the phone, and a shiver goes up Frank’s spine at the sound, “... a hotel down the road from my office. I know they don’t, um. They don’t ask questions, if you catch my drift.” 

“Oh,” Frank says, eyes darting around. He’s barely said two words, but still worries it could be decoded. Surely his secretary knows what his conversations with Sonia usually sound like; this might throw her off enough to wonder.

“Yeah, so. We can meet there.” Went pauses, clearing his throat. Frank thinks he must be nervous. Then he says, a mile lighter, “Maybe we can even turn on a lamp or two on this time.” 

Frank snorts. “What’s the address?” 

It’s not as hard to get away as Frank thinks. No matter how paranoid Sonia can be about calls to the house or stains on his clothing, apparently his general whereabouts are not of the same importance. An absent Thursday isn’t out of the ordinary. Frank would love to travel back in time and thank himself for establishing such a convenient habit. He’s been unknowingly preparing to have an affair for years. 

And that’s what it is. An affair. 

At first, it seems a steep word for meeting someone in a hotel downtown on his fake-bowling nights. And maybe, at first, it is. But it quickly becomes a habit. And as savvy as Frank is at the art of habiting—at ushering themselves into different rooms every week and pushing onto the beds; at tracing the lines of each other’s muscles and tongues and bodies with fingers and mouths and cocks; at kissing and licking and laughing and humming and cleaning up and promising to spice it up with a pizza or beer or a bottle of white for next week—they also tend to sneak up on him. 

“You really don’t want to hear about my job,” Frank tells him on their fourth or fifth time, deep into November, after Eddie’s spent more than a month trying full-days in kindergarten and Frank’s spent more than a month being fucked—or fucking—into squeaky, soiled mattresses. 

Went’s hand drifts mindless and gentle across Frank’s chest, and he wills away the shiver it draws. 

“I asked!” Went blanches, his eyebrows springing up. “I told you about my life’s destiny of scraping plaque off the pissants.”

“It pays your mortgage,” says Frank. Went tips his head, his face contorting in concession. “I grew up with a guy who went into dentistry. Inherited his father’s practice. Never had to worry about money his whole life.” 

“The _luxury_ ,” Went rumbles, his finger catching on Frank’s nipple. A grunt rumbles in his throat. “It was the family business, yeah. So was getting married and having the little kiddo.” He shrugs, biting at his lip. 

This is the way he talks about his life, Frank has come to find. With a shrug, with an air of apathy Frank _also_ has found is complete bullshit. Went’s heart beats strong and sure in his chest. A little too sure, for him, Frank thinks. Frank sees the shine of hurt in Went’s eyes, no matter how much he tries to shake it off with words, with jokes. He gives it all away with the soft, gentle way his eyebrows arch and fall, with the quirk of his lips or the flicker that flashes across his eyes. Frank has no idea how Went manages to keep any of this a secret from his wife. 

But Frank doesn’t like to think about that.

“My old man got me my job,” Frank tells him. He feels he owes it to him, in a way. Went has been more forthright than he has. About his marriage, about his kid, about his life at home, his childhood. Frank has never been an open book. Saying anything feels like a feat. But Went settles something content in his stomach. 

_You want him too, huh?_

He swallows around it. 

“I came out of the army and it was a desk job.” Frank tries his hand at shrugging. Went snakes an arm around his middle and squeezes. He’s a cuddler. Frank isn’t a fan, but the radiator in today’s room is on the fritz, so he welcomes the heat. “Thought I should establish a career, and insurance seemed fine enough.” 

“A fine career for a fine man,” Went teases. 

“I wouldn’t go that far.” Frank shifts around, but Went stays put. “My wife— Sonia was just… she was there.”

“Romantic.”

Frank flinches, suppressing the laugh that wants to bubble up. It feels too cruel; it’s not Sonia’s fault he isn’t built for something like that.

“I think she wanted to get out from under her mother,” he says, a little too honestly. It’s something he’s never said aloud to anyone. 

_Who would you have said it to, Frank?_

“I understand that. My mother was the smothering type.” Went huffs a laugh, swiping his chin over Frank’s chest hair. His eyebrows shoot up, his eyes glinting into Frank’s. “I’m sure the psychologists would have a field day with me.” 

Frank presses his tongue hard against the backs of his teeth. He knows what Went means; it’s not the first time they’ve skirted this topic. The few other times it’s come up, Frank dodges past it, and Went seems glad to let him. Just because Went says something doesn’t mean he wants to dwell.

This time, the thought evolves into something else. 

“Have you, uh. Done this? Before?” Frank’s eyes stick solid to the wall across from the bed, to the peeling wallpaper and the suspicious brown stain straight behind it. Went stills against him, then goes lax again almost as quickly.

“No,” he says. Frank unclenches his teeth. “Not with a man, no. And not more than once.” 

He chances a look at Frank. Frank feels something like relief and arousal and fear all at once. Then Went digs a thumb into Frank’s side. 

“You broke my rule, you charmer. But you just kept showing _up_.” 

Frank squirms away, pain shooting through his ribs, then rolls off the bed to start the nightly clean up. 

Later, after their aborted attempts to call it a night finally cease, when Went’s hips are rocking him into the mattress, the sound of their belts colliding and Went’s small, breathy grunts the only sounds in the room, Frank whispers, “Never, no one,” again and again when Went asks him back. Went comes deep and long, kissing into Frank’s chest, and Frank feels the tears he will never allow to fall. 

Frank doesn’t realize it’s gotten out of hand until Christmas. 

The week leading up is all standard fare. Frank has three vacation days, so he puts up a tree the day before Christmas Eve, as he does every year. Sonia—frustrated he hasn’t done this earlier—nags at him to re-arrange the lights, or the garland, or the collection of dull and colorless ornaments they have, as she does every year. Eddie sits in the middle of the room the whole time looking put-out, a new storybook Sonia got him perched over his lap. As he does every year, he’ll eventually burst into tears when Sonia doesn’t let him have another row of her dry sugar cookies, and Sonia will hoist him onto her hip and shush him out of the room. 

But this year, Frank doesn’t take his leave with his annual cigar and a hollow feeling cracked over his chest like an egg. Instead he ducks into the kitchen and picks up the phone. 

He lets it ring twice and hangs up. He dials again and Went’s voice answers after half a ring. 

“’Lo?” he says, like a Southern woman with a busy kitchen and an apple pie in the oven. Frank’s whole body goes warm. 

“I’m in,” Frank tells him, and Went makes quiet _whoop-whoop_ noise just to make him laugh. 

Frank spends Christmas morning eating Sonia’s runny scrambled eggs and bacon and watching Eddie open a few presents before he insists on playing with the same old rickety train set in his room, where he will promptly fall asleep over the tracks. Sonia begins knitting as soon as he’s gone, and Frank sees his opening. 

“I’m heading into the office a little early,” Frank calls into the living room. When he rounds the corner, Sonia’s brow is cocked over her uneven stitch. 

“On Christmas?” she squawks. Frank suppresses an eye roll, which has become harder and harder since he and Went took up. Went never minds Frank’s gut reaction. In fact, it usually gets a pretty favorable response. Frank rolls his eyes, Went smiles wide and happy and radiant, his eyes shining sinister, and Frank moves in to kiss him. 

Went’s not the most straight-forward guy, but he seems to appreciate getting a rise out of Frank. And Frank’s more than happy to be predictable for Went. 

“I’ll be a few hours,” Frank says appeasingly. “We can have dinner together.” 

Sonia’s face is stone cold, but Frank leaves the room without hearing her response. He knows what she’s thinking; there’s no use fighting about this. He’s leaving, no matter what she says. 

The Ambient isn’t decorated for Christmas. In fact, the only difference is the film title on the marquee, something Christmasy—something _normal_ with no explicit undercurrent—instead of the usual fare. But when Went shows up with a big smile, a light blue sweater and tan slacks, a scarf half-ass wrapped around his neck, it feels like Christmas all the same. 

Frank wants to kiss him, but leads him into the theater and pays for his ticket instead. 

“It was my idea,” Went says quietly, leaned in close to Frank’s chest. Frank feels the electricity between them, and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his hands off once they sit down. 

“It’s my holiday,” Frank says back. Went cackles at that, and a few men turn to look at them. 

_Let them look_ , Frank thinks. _They should know he’s mine_. 

“Enjoy, gentlemen,” the ticket-taker tells them. Went is off toward their theater in half a second, but Frank nods his thanks. “I’ll see you in a bit,” he says. 

Frank blinks, his hands shaking slightly. 

“Sure,” he says, though he’s not sure why. 

They’re not in their regular theater, which pulls at something weird in Frank’s chest. The movie eventually smoothes it out for him, as does the complete lack of audience along with them. Went is able to quote along with the film, every single line rolling from his tongue like this is his annual tradition. 

“My mother loved this movie,” Went explains after a particularly long monologue. Frank thinks of his own mother and how much she hated films. 

_“A waste of time,_ ” Frank hears, in her slow, syrup-dripped voice. _“People should be working and studying their Bibles, not out in dark rooms doing God knows what._ ” 

She’d be spinning in her urn if she knew what Frank gets up to in those dark rooms. 

Though they’ve been to the Ambient several times, Frank feels nothing familiar about this experience compared to the others. Went’s hand stays resolutely on his thigh the entire time. Went glances over at him during funny moments, or sad moments, or during no moments at all, just because they’re alone, and he can look. Frank always looks back. Frank doesn’t feel like he has to hide here, despite the cover of darkness. They’re here _together_. It’s not a meeting of chance. They chose to be here together. And when Went leans over to rub his temple against Frank’s shoulder, nuzzling into him, something crashes over Frank’s resolve. 

He’s down on his knees before he knows it, sticky with old come and popcorn butter and shoe gunk, pulling Went out of his pants and mouthing around him with fervor and fury. He fists around the root of Went’s cock and goes to town, miles more confident about this than he would have been the last time they were here. The Frank of only four months ago never would have moved out of his chair. He never would have slid hands down someone’s thighs, or undone their pants, or taken a cock in his mouth without a condom. And maybe that’s something he shouldn’t be doing now. 

It’s a drop in the ocean of things he shouldn’t be doing. 

The risk of all of this is not beyond him, not by a long-shot. It’s always settled unhappily at the back of his brain. The danger of someone finding out is right at the top of the list, and blowing Went right in the middle of an empty theater is probably not going to culminate in that eventuality, but the thrill of it is enough to spur him on. He knows he’s going too fast, too hard, too eager, but Went wraps fingers around his arm and presses hard with his thumb, and when Frank lifts his eyes he can see Went’s shining back at him, even through the dark blue hue of the screen lighting them up. 

_You love him_ , he hears, and he wonders, for one blissful, aching moment, if it was always this easy to see Went through the darkness. 

If he was avoiding it. 

The music swells behind Frank as he finishes the job, sloppy and enthusiastic like Went loves, licking up the sides and letting Went come in his mouth when he’s done. Frank lets it flow through his chest, his stomach and his heart, lets himself sit in the moment and enjoy it as Went cracks open his eyes and smiles as soon as he sits back down. His own erection is but a simmer in the back of his mind, even with Went rubbing eagerly against his thigh, his thumb skirting the edge. He focuses back in on the movie and lets Went recover, and by the time the end credits are rolling, their hands are tangled on top of his thigh instead. Frank’s erection has flagged, but he finds it’s the last thing he’s worried about. 

It’s the best Christmas he’s ever had in his life. 

Frank watches Went as they leave the theater, trailing behind him to smile without being caught. Both of them promised to be back for dinner, so Went turns to wink his goodbye—and Frank resolutely _does not_ blush—while Frank intends to make a bathroom pit stop before his drive home. 

He never makes it to the men’s room. Not after he sees the ticket-taker, sitting in the booth. 

Frank freezes in the bathroom doorway, his whole body sweating bullets. The man is staring straight at him, and Frank could swear his eyes are… glowing. They’re hollow and dark, black and yet shining, like when you blink too hard and come away with spots. They bore into Frank. They itch at him. 

After a minute, he walks toward the booth, his whole body moving in slow motion.

“You love him,” the ticket-taker says as he gets closer, and though Went is long gone, Frank knows who he’s talking about. 

“I don’t—” 

“He wants you,” he says, a hiss, a low growl through his smiling teeth. Clenched. Pointed like a shark’s. Frank’s never noticed that before. “He loves you too.” 

It’s familiar, a ringing in Frank’s ears, a deja vu that he’s been hearing for weeks, for _months_ , at the back of his head. He blinks, but nothing changes, still deep in a waking nightmare. The ticket-taker’s face swirls before his eyes. His teeth seem as big as his face, like he could unhinge his jaw and swallow Frank whole if he wanted. 

“How could you possibly,” Frank starts, swallowing down the defensive anger. That can’t be— Went can’t _love_ him. And this man, this… this ticket-taker has no way of knowing something like that. Frank’s heart thumps hard in his chest nevertheless. 

The ticket-taker taps his fingers on his desk. His eyebrows rock up once in a squiggly line. 

“What are you looking for, Frank?”

Frank’s whole stomach wants to drop out, the words bouncing around in his subconscious. And then, after a split second, two men approach behind him. 

Frank sees the flip in the ticket-taker’s face. It shifts back to the same boring, unremarkable face that Frank has seen for years. Pale, hat tipped down over his receding hair, frown plastered on. No sharpened teeth. No wide smile. No swirling, horrifying expressions. 

Frank steps away and walks out the door and vows to shake it off.

Frank can’t love Went. And Went definitely does not love him. There’s no way.

He thinks of Went’s dark eyes flashed in the theater, then and now. He thinks of Went’s laugh in the lamp light of hotel rooms and the dark bar they found thirty miles out when they got one weekend away. He thinks of the way Went lights up when he talks about Richie, or his semester of creative writing in college, or the feeling of seeing a vintage car on a lot. He thinks of Went settling next to him in bed, and how much he longs to wake up next to him every morning.

 _You_ — 

Frank loves him. 

The next week passes in an indeterminable fog. 

Frank lies in bed each night, staring at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to finally relax him, but it never comes. Each morning he rises out of bed more and more exhausted, baffled at how fast he let everything go off the rails. He broke every single one of his rules—Went did too, if his teasing has any grain of truth to it—and now he’s wrapped up in something so much bigger than him it feels like it’s crushing him by the moment. Sitting on top of him until the whole center of him bursts into a plume of dust. 

Though he drags himself to work in the days between Christmas and New Year’s, he gets nothing done. He sits in his cubicle and stares at the phone, blinking with messages. When it rings, he doesn’t pick up. He’s too afraid of hearing the voice. Of hearing someone telling him what he already knows, like the ticket-taker did. 

He already hears it, all day long, on a loop playing at the back of his mind, slowly creeping to the forefront.

 _What are you looking for, Frank?_

Went wouldn’t dare leave Frank a message at work, but Frank knows some of the missed calls are from him. They didn’t make plans for New Year’s. They didn’t make any plans. 

Frank wants desperately to see him. 

Frank’s been seeing him all over town. 

Or: he keeps seeing… something. 

It’s most likely the lack of sleep, or the emotional distress, or the wall of anxiety Frank feels he has to climb just to pull himself out of bed in the morning. But in every single moment of his ordinary, boring, normal day, he turns his head and sees Went’s dark eyes shining at him. The intern making copies, the man delivering coffee, the police officer walking toward him down the street. Every time, Frank recognizes something dark and hollow in them, in the corner of his blurry periphery. But every time he snaps his head to look, his heart pounding in his chest, his veins filled with the icy inevitability of him finally facing his fate: the eyes… turn.

Each time it happens, his whole body flashes back to that moment in the lobby of the theater. Drooping, hollow, inhuman eyes, pouring black down each person’s face. Wrong and frightening. Unnatural, and then, over in a moment. As if it never happened. 

Back to normal.

Frank keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

On New Year’s Day, Frank is perched on his fuzzy recliner, watching Eddie pound intolerable and mindless tunes on his mother’s old piano when the phone rings. Frank’s already working on a splitting headache, so when Sonia picks it up, he’s relieved. He walks over to pull the keyboard cover over Eddie’s hands, careful not to pinch his fingers. Eddie’s brown eyes blink up at him.

“Sorry, Ed,” Frank tells him. “Don’t want to start the new year with a migraine.” 

“S’okay, Dad,” Eddie says, small and understanding. Frank kisses him on the forehead on instinct. His kind boy. Eddie’s cheeks pinch up, dimpling, and Frank feels a sweep of affection that soothes his stomach for the first time in weeks. 

Then he hears Sonia’s voice.

“And why do you want to talk to him again?”

Frank’s heart stops. He knows it’s Went even before he stumbles into the kitchen and sees Sonia posturing, hand on her hip, phone flipped over her shoulder. 

“Do you know a Wentworth?” she asks him, and Frank bites down hard on the inside of his cheek. 

“No, I—” he blurts, feeling caught. But he’s allowed to have friends. 

His heart pounds in his chest, but she hands him the receiver. He clears his throat, trying to stay calm. If he acts suspicious, she’ll be suspicious. 

Sonia crosses her arms over her chest and stands in the doorway, watching him. 

He feels suddenly like he’s onstage. 

Went’s voice is squeaky and apologetic in his ear. 

“Frank, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know how else to get ahold of you during the holidays. I know I’m not supposed to do this and then she f— I mean, she picked _up_ and I—”

“Can I help you?” Frank says, low and ashamed, struck with pity and guilt and longing all smushed together in his heart. Went huffs a sigh. 

“I get it, uh.” He pauses. Frank frowns at Sonia. “I wanted to… I wanted to see you.”

“Right.” 

“Soon, preferably.” Went sighs again, with a tilt of a laugh to it. “This is really… this is really desperate, I know that. But the last few times I just really _thought_ — I thought maybe—” 

“When is this?” Frank asks, still trying to pass himself off. Feasibly, he thinks, where his mind is running underneath all of Went’s shaky words, Sonia doesn’t know anyone on his fake-bowling league. “The game, I mean.” 

“The g— oh. Right,” Went says, catching on. They’ve talked about their alibis enough by now. “It’s… tomorrow? Tomorrow after dinner? Or maybe even the night after, I don’t want to—”

“I can probably make it,” Frank interrupts, his breath catching hard and fast in his chest. He knows he shouldn’t, but it feels like… 

It feels like…

 _What are you looking for_ — 

“Good,” Went says, relieved. “Uh, the… the hotel?”

“Sure, I’ll see you then.” Frank slams the phone back onto the wall before he can hear any more of Went’s voice. 

“Make it where, Frank?” Sonia asks, hands on her hips, foot tapping on the linoleum. Frank thinks he could paint her like this from memory, all bent elbows and frown lines. More severe and more confused as she gets older, and all Frank gets is more weary. Today, it sways him in a way it hasn’t the last four months. It could be the way Eddie is sitting so innocently in the other room, or that it’s the first time Went has really disrupted—interrupted—his family time. But Frank feels the guilt slog over him like a thick film. Like he’s pulling himself through a bog, his legs pulling hard against the resistance, but he doesn’t think he’s making much progress.

“It’s a game,” he says simply, his voice paper-thin like his excuse.

Sonia’s gaze drifts up and down his body, sizing him up, and Frank is sure she’s about to call his bluff. His months of bluffs. Maybe she knows everything. Maybe she’s known it this whole time. He hasn’t exactly been subtle; she could see it on his face when he comes home. When he comes home smelling of a foreign cologne she might mistake for perfume, when his clothes are crooked and smudged with Went’s fingerprints. 

She bites her lip and blows air out through her nose. 

“It’s been awhile,” she says, then moves toward him, pecking him on the cheek lightly. “I don’t know what you see in that whole endeavor. You boys never win.” 

“Right,” huffs Frank, exasperated for all the wrong reasons. “We never do.” 

The hotel is bathed in blue light by the time Frank pulls up. A man stands alone at a vending machine outside the lobby, poking at buttons. Frank sits and watches, waiting to see Went’s car pull into the parking lot alongside him so they can pay. 

When the man turns, an old glass Coke bottle clutched in his hand, Frank catches sight of his blinding white teeth first. Pointed. Sharp. Pressed together, bumpy and glowing. His eyes are the same. 

His eyes are…

Under Frank’s frenzied stare, the mouth opens, lips moving in the shadow of words. Frank rolls down his window without realizing it, his hand moving without his permission. The second time the mouth moves, Frank hears it clearly. 

“Is this what you’re looking for?” 

A knock at his window. 

Frank startles—almost screams—and turns to see Went’s smiling face shining back at him. It’s calm, as opposed to the vending machine man, his face turning over and over in Frank’s mind until he looks back up to see an empty spot where he once stood. 

Went mumbles something through the window, then pops open the door at Frank’s instruction.

“You made it,” he says, his eyes soft and concerned, like he really thought Frank might not show. 

“Did you get a room?” Frank asks, nervous. He feels like he’s being watched. Went licks at his lips, nodding, then leads him there. 

Went opens the door to their room, and Frank breathes a sigh of relief when he sees it’s empty. 

He feels like he’s losing his mind. 

Maybe he is. He _probably_ is, in fact. Not only is he having an affair—having an affair with a _man_ , and _in love with the man with whom he’s having an affair_ —but now he’s seeing things. Seeing people. _Hearing_ and seeing people and voices and losing his ever-loving mind. It feels like his sanity is slowly dripping down the tubes of his self-control; down and out until it’s completely slipping through his hands. 

Out of his control. 

_What do you want, Frank?_

Frank watches Went place his wallet, keys and glasses on the side table by the bed. His side of the bed. They’ve done this enough. 

They’ve done this so much. 

_What do you want?_

And it’s what Frank wants. He keeps wanting it. He keeps thinking of it. It’s all he thinks of anymore. 

They unbutton each other slowly, before waves of anxiety start rolling through Frank’s stomach. Then his fingers fumble over each plastic button. Shaking and nervous, familiar and scared, waiting for someone to burst through the door and catch them. Sonia. The man at the vending machine. His boss. The ticket-taker. Their eyes are dark and sunken into his memory; watching him mouth over Went’s collarbone, push his shirt off his shoulders, groan when he feels hands on his own flesh. But then Went pulls away, and Frank sees only his eyes. 

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you,” Went says quietly, secretly, his forehead pinched in pain. “I _can’t_ stop thinking about you. It’s really…”

That’s all they are. A secret. 

“It’s messing with my head, Frank.” Went grits his teeth. “It’s messing with my life.” 

That’s all they can ever be. 

“Yeah,” Frank chokes out. “It’s out of control.” 

_You were supposed to control this_. 

“I don’t want it to stop,” breathes Went like a confession, and Frank’s whole body slumps in the face of it. Went takes a step forward, closing the gap between them to press hands to each of Frank’s arms. “I know I should stop it, but I can’t—” 

“I can’t either.” Frank feels wild, unbidden. Went’s eyes are bright. The only light Frank feels like he’s seen in days. Went nods, rubbing his hands up and down, the skin of Frank’s arms warming. He nods and cups his hands around Frank’s face, thumbs sweeping under his eyes. He nods and leans in to kiss Frank gently, and Frank melts against him. 

There’s nothing else to do. Nothing else to say. Frank wants to pull back, but he doesn’t. He can’t. He’s never been able to stop Went from taking what he wants, because he knows it’s what he wants, too. 

Went gets down on his knees when they separate and licks over Frank’s hipbones. His stomach, his chest, his arms. He kisses the lightly freckled skin and Frank thinks maybe he’s whispering something, but Frank can’t make it out. He’s not sure he wants to. He undoes his pants and lets Went push them down around his thighs, off his legs, and weaves his hands in Went’s hair as he takes Frank in his mouth. 

The soft sighs and breathless grunts fill the room like they always do. Frank is already drunk on the sound. Went’s throat going tight around him when he pushes forward too far, or his little moans when Frank drips pre-come from the tip and drags it over Went’s lips. They’re feeding off each other, pushing and pulling, Went’s hands and tongue and mouth greedier by the second as they stretch and shine under Frank’s cock. 

Frank pulls him up under the arms and Went goes easy, pushed back onto the bed and arching his back to press their bodies together. Frank sucks on his nipple. Frank wraps a hand around his cock, long and hard, tracing a finger over the vein that crawls up the side. Frank kisses and kisses and kisses until Went is squirming against him. 

“Fuck,” hisses Went into his mouth. “I want more.” 

“You always do.”

“Yeah,” says Went. “Always want you.” 

Frank holds back the sob that creeps up into his throat. Pleasure fizzles through his brain and he wants to burst, wants to scream, wants to squeeze Went in his fingers until he evaporates until he slips through his hands forever, like he’s bound to. He’ll never have enough, even when it’s all laid out in front of him like this. He trails fingers down Went’s chest, then curves them until his nails catch skin. 

Went growls, wet and desperate. Frank does it again, harder. 

“Fuck, Frank—”

“You want so much,” Frank says, and Went’s hips pulse up up up until Frank can grip one hip against his palm. “You want me to fuck you.”

“ _Yes_.” 

“Ask for it,” orders Frank, his head spinning with lust. Went’s pupils are blown in the soft light, the white at his temples damp with sweat. He presses up onto his elbows, his chest heaving, and bites at his lip. 

“Please.” 

It’s barely a whisper, but it’s all for Frank. 

Frank takes off Went’s pants and bends his leg until his knee hits his shoulder. He buries his face down below Went’s balls, licking and sucking reverently where he can taste skin until he gets to his hole. He licks a stripe over it, just once, just to get Went to gasp. He spits where his tongue just left, then pushes a thumb into the opening. 

“Frank, God—”

“You want me,” Frank says again and again while he works. 

_I want you_. 

It’s like a record skipping in his brain, the same words and phrases and visions playing, then looping back to the beginning. He hears Went in an echo. Gasps and moans and pleas for more. Promises and attestations and the things Frank knew were piled up just waiting to tip over and spill all over the both of them. 

_I love you_. 

Once Went is dripping and open, he’s writhing impatiently on the bed, his knee still clutched sweaty in his hand. Frank pumps over himself slowly, pressing his cock against Went’s. He slides against wet skin, through saliva and pre-come and sweat until it’s slick and easy. He braces his hands on either side of Went’s chest and thrusts. Went cries out as Frank’s cock slips back and forth over his hole. 

“Please.”

“I could come on you like this,” Frank says, and he wants to. He wants to mark Went up, dirty him, send him home with the evidence all over so this will _have_ to end. So someone else can bust open all their secrets and make them deal with the consequences. So he doesn’t have to make this decision himself. So he doesn’t have to drive himself crazy just wondering what the right thing is. 

“Oh fuck, please,” Went whimpers, and Frank wants to laugh. They’re so easy for each other. “Please, please, Frank.” 

“You want me to come on you.”

Went’s head flicks with a nod.

Easy. 

Frank’s eyes find Went’s, and he presses the tip of his cock into Went’s hole, tight and wanting. He’s hardly loose enough, but he wants it.

 _He wants you, doesn’t he_? 

Frank pushes forward, breaching him, and they both groan with it. Low and deep and hot and tight and Frank keeps going until he bottoms out, Went’s hands and fingers and nails gripping hard and biting into the skin of his ass. 

Frank wants to fuck him into the bed. Pound him hard and deep and lose himself in the slapping of their bodies and their skin and forget everything. Forget the eyes and the dreams and the hallucinations and the words. His wife. His son. His job. He just wants this. But then Went thumbs at Frank’s chin, drawing their eyes together. 

“I love you,” he says, almost matter-of-factly. So blunt that Frank almost laughs. 

Instead, it feels like his heart cracks in half. He rocks forward into Went’s gasps of pleasure, but Went keeps staring at him. Keeps leaning forward to kiss him.

Keeps whispering, “I love you,” until Frank’s tears really start to fall. 

He leans back to change their angle, to push Went down onto his back so he can take it. But Went keeps watching him. Keeps a hand on his arm, on his back, cupped around his ass or his thigh or his neck. He keeps touching and saying and pleading and Frank can’t deny him any longer. 

He can never deny him. 

Frank pushes and thrusts, fucking into Went in messy, chaotic circles, but he doesn’t seem to mind. He’s thrashing on the bed, his arms flailing where they aren’t touching or clinging, and Frank feels like he’s losing it. His ears ring and his mind buzzes with the pleasure. Went looks so good under him, pumping his hips up so he can get more, so he can keep Frank tight and hot inside him. Snug and his. Both of them connected so completely that maybe they’ll never have to separate. 

When Went surges up and wraps his arms around Frank’s neck, Frank turns his head and sinks his teeth into Went’s shoulder. Went cries out. A red bloom forms under Frank’s mouth, so he tongues at the skin and pulls Went’s hips closer and closer, harder and harder until he feels himself coming apart. He groans his release and shoves a hand between them, jerking Went harder than he knows he likes, wanting both to destroy him and put him back together again. 

Went comes close behind him, shooting between them, wet and sticky and final. 

They breathe together on the bed for what feels like hours before they separate. 

Went says it again, standing in the doorway, tears in his eyes. 

Frank lets him go. 

The last time Frank visits the Ambient Theater, he’s only passing by. 

He doesn’t realize the route to his doctor’s office drives him through the same route he used to take every Thursday until he sees the lights coming around the corner. Swearing under his breath, he also says a small prayer of thanks that Sonia isn’t with him today. She usually insists on coming along to his consults, but today his appointment was close enough to his lunch break that she relented. 

The front doors look the same, as does the marquee. He drives past slowly and thinks of sweaty evening walks and dark meetings. 

Just as he blinks away the memories, locking them back up where they’ve been for almost the past year, he sees a flicker of movement through the glass of the door, in a small area where the paper has been peeled away. 

A man is waving. His teeth white and sharp. His smile wide and smug. 

The ticket-taker.

Frank swallows around the plunging fear sticking around the edges of his heart. 

He waves back. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed!


End file.
